December Update: House Exterior Punch List

The husband and I used to really enjoy doing yard work so it seemed logical to dive into the thing we liked the most to get our feet wet on this house.  Given the sheer amount of holes/cracks/popcorn/paneling issues with the walls inside, painting seemed super overwhelming.  Every season I would plant almost 200 annuals in our flower beds, we were on top of mowing/weeds, I would trim our little oak tree like a boss....just generally we took pride in our house appearance.  We don't have an HOA in our neighborhood so maybe that's a lot of why we haven't tried enough...or it could be the rocks finally broke our spirit.

When we last left off on the pond adventure we had completely torn it out and filled the hole with 20 bags of soil.  Then we declared it too hot to do anything else and quit for about a month and a half.    Then one day it suddenly got a little cooler, we got some pep in our yard step and got the brilliant idea to keep going for about 3-4 more weekends.

Here's the running list of action items for the exterior:

Gutters on house and workshop
Tear out pond
Remove all the rocks - 60% complete
Remove fake gutters around workshop & fill in with soil - 33% complete
Tear our bricks in front yard plant beds
Landscape front beds
Trim oak tree in front yard
Tear out pond electrical
Tear out little tree next to pond electrical
Replace fence & bring one side towards street for more backyard
Tear out melon plants/lattice on side yard
Tear out lattice/vine plants in back yard
Lay sod on side yard & back yard
Run new sprinklers where pond was and tune up existing (too much overspray onto fence)
Paint front door
Power wash front porch
Replace numbers on house with something more modern
Replace front door light fixture with something more modern
Possibly tear out some concrete in front yard (long term)
Add some flair to house facade (long term)
Install horseshoe pits in backyard (this requires not being hermits)
Replace brown roof for "weathered wood" shingles (standard roof color - crossing fingers for hail - long term)

Looking at that list...it's a lot of projects.  Some are contractor jobs that we just haven't handled or it's the wrong season (laying sod).  Either way, the current state of the backyard is way better looking than it used to be.  My parents came up for Thanksgiving and we actually had a nice little spot to sit outside and get a fire going in our chiminea.  The front yard is also looking better but with a sea of concrete, it is really tough to have curb appeal.  I think we need some colorful ceramic planters by the front door and our roof line is also very flat which doesn't help with visual interest.

Stay tuned for an update on how the backyard is looking and why this blue tub of rocks is STILL in the way for four months and counting...